An editorial in today's Boston Globe makes note of the veiled relationship uniting the US and Iran on the subject of Iraq. Though neither side is acknowledging its need of the other, one thing seems clear: the sectarian purging of neighbourhoods and villages could become much worse, since the insurgency harbours within itself the potential for uncontrollable civil war.

The editorial is worth a read and captures Bush's position nicely when it says he is seen by many as a "feckless sorcerer's apprentice". The Senate would have to be thinking this as it takes up the largest emergency spending bill in history (spending on Iraq and Afghanistan currently runs at $10bn a month).

The editorial also links through to another piece touching upon the long-standing feud between two Shia clerics that is contributing to the dispute over Iraqi leadership. Useful here is the way we can see the rhizome effect of contemporary empire: that is, the ways in which the global and the local are intimately connected through fundamentally comprehensible social networks. Sort of a "six degrees from the sorcerer's apprentice" kind of thing.

The point the Globe editorial is making is that, should a civil war develop, it would be difficult for Iraq's neighbours not to intervene - at the very least through the use of militias and irregular proxies. The US could just go home, while Iran would be left with the radical disorder right on its doorstep. Both sides, therefore, have an interest in finding a way of stopping a conflict that, in the last month has claimed the lives of more than 100 Iraqis a day.